June 17th
No Turning Back
(Day 1)

We will actually begin this the day earlier on June 16th…

“Hey Joshua. Good luck with your music and your tour!” This is what Frank Hudson had said to me while jamming an air guitar as I passed by him. I put out the most uncomfortable smile in history as I thanked him and kept walking. I had just stepped off the stand after being questioned as a witness to two horrific murders he would eventually be accused of committing almost a year ago. It made me question a lot of things—well not only this one incident—but possibly the fact that during the trial I was questioned more and commented more on my upcoming U.K. tour than about the murders. From both the prosecutor and the judge, slight gasps rang out followed by smiles and blushing from everyone in the courtroom after the subject came up. Don’t get me wrong, I never shut up when talking about our band, but for some reason, for the first time in my life, I really felt as though our band was probably the second most important thing in the world. As I left the courtroom it took me all of three seconds to move on. I mean come on—we ARE leaving for the U.K. in the morning!!! Time to get focused and do all the finishing touches!

Well those finishing touches ended up being drinking WAY too much Blue Moon and jumping off of my front porch yet again, breaking the bushes in half and slicing a 7” gash across my back. Not to mention having contests with Ashley on who can be the first person to catch the other persons’ spit in their mouth from six feet away.

In the morning I had Ashley drop by and give me a ride home. Two extremely hung over individuals about to take part in the single most important moment of their life. We did alright. We stopped in to say goodbye to Soup and Matt Strong. Killer names by the way. Although it was maybe 6 in the morning, Soup came out dressed in black (the normal Soup attire) with everything but the boots. Not too sure if he had just awoke or had not gone to bed at all. We sat for a moment, took pictures, said goodbye and assured him the we would look after his newly acquired roommate Girth Brooks (the massive dildo that we found in the Nevada desert, which is our band mascot, and which we will be taking for one last trip with us to photograph along the way. Soup happened to win him at our summer fund raising BBQ.)

Everyone arrives at my house—even the Comcast man to fix our internet! We go through our “stories” that we will tell customs when we approach the gate to enter the country. We had heard many stories about being rejected and being sent back—even by a band that we are supposed to play with in just a few days. She was sent back to the U.S. Basically this is one of the most stressful parts of the tour for us. We have spent so much time and money and energy on this tour—literally months and months—and it can easily just end before it begins if we get stopped. We were supposed to get permission slips to do the tour but the thing is that they don’t give them out unless you are huge—and while I would love to say this is true—we are not there yet. One thing I really respect about the members of this band is that they will do ANYTHING that needs to be done. And this is a perfect example—risking it all just for the chance to (hopefully) tour.

We say our goodbyes to the loved ones, repacked our bags and go over our checklists five more times (passports, ID, “vacation packets”, etc.), finally packing all five of us and our luggage into Ashley’s tiny blue, crayon-smelling VW. On our way to Seattle we stop a million times—at the bank, our houses for shit we forgot, etc—but at least we stopped for food! Subway is what we ate for our last American meal for three weeks, which happened to be donated to us from Paul. Thanks Paul—Ashley got her cookie!

When we reach Aubrey and Chris’ house, who will be dropping us off at the SEATAC airport, we are greeted by two little dogs that think they are great danes. I instantly forget their names because we were thrown into a game of ROCKBAND. I am not a huge fan of video games; I think the only one I have ever had a true love for is the original Silent Hill—which made me wake up with poop in my diaper. So I begin the game as a total skeptic. But by the third round, when Julius is screeching out Rush vocals for the song “Tom Sawyer”, there was no turning back for any of us! We contemplated skipping the tour, getting a case of beer, and just telling everyone we went on tour.

Finally getting to the airport we find our first Girth Brooks victim. An older man and his friend at the departure point. Just waiting for someone to come up and ask them to take a picture with a ten-pound dildo!

Oh dear god, the lady at the NWA check in point was amazing, trying to sell us better tickets to the U.K. if we leave the next day and saying things like “boingo boingo boingo” and asking us to say hello to the queen for her. We decline and move on to the security checkpoint—I know what you are thinking—and believe me, I was thinking the same thing! Will we make it through without getting caught with drugs or knives or God forbid a tube of toothpaste larger than 3 oz?

So the answer is: yes! We made it. And only managed to have two people leave their passports behind before we made it to our gate! We sat at the gate for hours—no smiles, no talking, no joking—just waiting. We have waited almost a year for this moment and we couldn’t even muster a slight amount of excitement. The only explanation I can think of is that we were ready for it. Completely 100% prepared to show the Queen that Dirt Jake Replicas is going to show them something new and exciting.

As we line up to get on the plane there is a man in line that looks just like Soup. A sign? Maybe. Either way it was time to board the plane. In ten hours we will be on foreign soil.

On the Way to the U.K.

Links: Dirt Jake ReplicasSpace

All photos taken from the DJR’s Myspace